ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - The Iraqi government announced on Wednesday that Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani’s attendance in today’s parliament session was based on his request to discuss the government’s measures to shield the country from recent events unfolding in the region.
The Iraqi Parliament’s hosting of PM Sudani was based on his request to discuss the government’s "policies and the measures it is taking to confront the challenges and developments taking place in the region since the events of October 7, 2023,” read a statement by the Iraqi Prime Minister’s media office.
Top Iraqi leaders have voiced concern over escalations in Syria which have broken out since last Wednesday following a sweeping rebel offensive against the regime in Damascus.
In a phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday, Iraqi PM Sudani said that his country would not "stand idly by to watch the dangerous repercussions taking place in Syria.”
Sudani had also told Erdogan that Iraq would "make every effort to preserve its security and that of Syria.”
Amid heightening tensions in the neighboring country and concerns of the conflict spilling into Iraq, Baghdad authorities on Monday deployed additional armored units to fortify its international borders, with the interior ministry claiming that the country’s borders with Syria are “impenetrable”.
"The fortifications of the Iraqi borders are the best in the history since the establishment of the Iraqi state borders," Interior Ministry spokesperson Miqdad Miri told reporters on Monday, adding that they have positive readings for the future.
Iraq’s borders with Syria extend 618 kilometers. Haider al-Karkhi, spokesperson for the Iraqi border forces told The New Region on Saturday that Iraq has a 210-kilometer-long concrete wall along the borders with Syria, reinforced with trench, a sand barrier, and two different layers of barbed wires, adding that they are working on extending the wall.
Syrian opposition armed groups, led by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), launched a surprise offensive against the Syrian army in Aleppo and Idlib countryside on Wednesday, triggering one of the bloodiest escalations in the Syrian civil war in years. The clashes have claimed the lives of over 600 people, according to a war monitor.
The opposition's self-proclaimed Syrian Salvation Government on Sunday issued a statement assuring the people and government of Iraq that they do not pose a threat to Iraq or other countries in the region. It added that they were committed to strengthening "brotherly ties" with neighboring Iraq and working toward shared interests, which it said required “continued cooperation and understanding” between the two sides.
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